In the Central Intelligence Agency’s declassified archives is a formerly SECRET memo, dated February 17th, 1967, from the Chief of the CIA’s Technical Intelligence Division entitled “Photo Analysis of UFO Photography.” That memo served as a response to a request by the Deputy Director of The National Photographic Interpretation Center to analyze photographic evidence of what was purported to be an unidentified flying object.

As you may be aware, part of the CIA’s CREST release included an extensive archive of files pertaining to UFOs, including photos of supposed sightings. As you might not be aware, the majority of those photos are hot garbage. And so, to round out our week of X-Files themed records, we’re going to take you on a tour of the most dubious examples of extraterrestrial evidence the Agency collected over the years.

The FBI file on Majestic-12 may be the Bureau’s most X-Filesy file of all - full of hoaxes, planted documents, and allegations of aliens. The Bureau, however, was essentially disinterested in the case, did no actual investigating, and barely pursued the very real crime that had been committed by forging government documents, only adding fuel to the suspicion that the papers were government sponsored, or at least tolerated, disinformation.

Mostly redacted CIA records capture a rare Cold War commiseration between American and Soviet meteorologists over weather balloons being mistaken for aliens.

A request for FBI files on a figure at the center of dozens of 20th century conspiracy theories reveals a rare glimpse into the Bureau’s real-life “X-Files” - and tell a story of flying saucers and secret assassins stranger than anything on the show.